Pages

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

What Does A 228 Year Old Store And Our Packaging Have In Common?

People ask us questions about Bodacious Biscuit Love all the time. We love it. It generates conversation and interest. That is a beautiful thing in our book as it continues to build our growing community. Questions range all over the charts from "can people eat your biscuits" to "do you plan on coming out with a meat flavored biscuit." One question we're frequently asked is, "Why the simple packaging and handwritten labels?"

There are two answers to that question...

Our mission is to spread as much biscuit love as we can to shelter, foster and rescue pups. In order for us to do that, we need to keep costs down. In the beginning we priced dozens of various labels for the bags, printed bags, tags, etc. With all the biscuit love we bag up per week...the cost would have been through the roof. Would we rather spend a substantial amount of money on pretty labels, fancy bags and all the bells and whistles OR on ingredients and shipping so more pups could receive crunchy love? We chose the latter. This is the reason why we hand write our labels, opt for simple packaging and keep it simple.

One thing that will more than likely be changing in the very near future are the labels we put on the back listing the ingredients. We've gotten to the point where we may have to start printing some of 'em here at home on our printer. The only reason why we'd have to use this method is because it's taking an enormous amount of time to write these out manually...as in several hours a day.

Our second answer to this question is more sentimental than anything and it all has to do with The Old Country Store and Museum in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. We're both from N.H. and have frequented this store since our childhood days...the earliest dating back to 6 years old. This is when penny candy was actually a penny. When your parents handed you a quarter for penny candy, that was a big deal.

Times have changed and some of those changes have been reflected within the store. However, there's a lot that hasn't changed. This includes their use of brown paper sacks. It doesn't matter what you purchase, how much you spend or who you are...your merchandise is packed neatly in a brown paper bag. Before they package up your goods, they do all of the calculations on the bag to determine your total. Handwritten. There's a certain essence of charm in that. This store has been around for over 200 years and we don't think their checkout method is ever going to change.

We wanted to apply that same charm to our packaging and that's why we only use brown paper bags. Smaller orders get the lunch sized bags. For larger orders we use the brown paper bags with handles. The ones with handles are available in a rainbow of colors at the store. However, we reach for the brown. If they're out, we go to another store.

If you've got a question, we'd love to hear from you! Our contact information can be found here.